


A stór mo chroí

by bravelikealady



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: I love yous, M/M, ask meme, hoarse under the blankets, number three - Freeform, oops this one shot is the length of a hefty chapter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-08
Updated: 2016-07-08
Packaged: 2018-07-22 06:50:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7424332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bravelikealady/pseuds/bravelikealady
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even in a house of dreams Adam Parrish can't stay asleep... Conveniently Ronan Lynch wasn't even trying.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A stór mo chroí

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fragmentedvisions](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fragmentedvisions/gifts).



> no actual depiction of graphic violence, but recall that implies Adam's abuse, so please enter into this safely if that may affect you

“ADAM! ADAM!”

 

A gasp sucked the world from the room and silence fell, swift and sudden. The tumbling quiet was the only way Adam knew that before this moment there had been noise. Too much noise. He was sweating and his hands ached, beneath the skin, something muscular, as if he had been fighting, gripping, tearing away at something. 

 

“Adam… Hey… Parrish…” long fingers spread gently over his clenched fist, coaxing his eyes open.  _ Right. Right.  _

 

He had forgotten- again- forgotten that he was not home. _ Not home, not home not home not home _ . He was not in the trailer. He was, in a way, at home. 

 

Ronan’s eyes were narrowed in caution and they traveled over Adam’s body as his hands moved from his now relaxing fists to his arms, his torso, his neck. “Jesus fuck, Parrish, I thought you were dying.”

 

“Sorry to disappoint.”

 

Adam remembered now, as Ronan thumped his knees until he sat up so he could wiggle onto the sofa beside him, that he had fallen asleep as Ronan played some new video game involving spells and swords, sometimes all at once which delighted him and seemed excessive to Adam. He insisted upon doing this in the dark ( _ It’s a plasma, Parrish… seriously what the hell are they teaching you in the Ivy? _ ) and so the blue flicker of the screen outlining Ronan’s frame as he sat on the floor, back to the couch, the background ambience, the steady rhythm of his breathing and the occasional whispered  _ fuck me _ or quiet giggle had rocked him to sleep as deeply as a newborn. He was sleeping like he was safe… and his brain made sure he paid for it.

 

His reflection or self pity or whatever it was was interrupted by Ronan extending a nearly empty two liter of Dr. Pepper at him.

 

“What,” he grimaced.

 

“Drink,” he said, “you were sweating, probably dehydrated.”

 

“Then shouldn’t I drink water?”

 

Ronan cut his eyes and met him with rare silence as he took a drink anyway. 

 

“Do you wanna talk about it?”

 

“About what?”

 

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Ronan got up from the couch and disappeared into the kitchen.

 

“Dramatic,” Adam mumbled.

 

“I heard you,” came from the kitchen.

 

“YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO,” he called back, and the laugh at the expense of himself buried a weight he didn’t realize he was still bearing on his chest. 

 

In the dream he had been in a pit. Far above him Gansey and Blue stared down, unfeeling, judging him. Adam was naked and modesty flickered at the back of his mind, but his father was just in front of him. Mr. Parrish seemed to control panthers that stood in a circle around the pit, all their teeth bared. They never came forward but they were there, waiting, ready for his father to drop his hand. He wanted to look up to Gansey, to Blue, to cry out for help, to beg them to do… anything… but he knew if he looked away, his father would drop his hand, the panthers would spring forward, and tear him apart. He wasn’t sure if in the dream his mother was somewhere crying or if the feeling of it just made him think of her, her accusatory sadness, after the fact.

 

“Wanna join the land of the living,” Ronan reappeared suddenly, slapping the thumb Adam had been chewing away, and passing him a glass of water.

 

“Sorry,” he nodded, sipping the water, grateful for the feel of it against his hand, the glass firm, the liquid cool, condensation from the heat of the night more real than his nightmare had been.

 

He closed his eyes, breathing deep. He felt Ronan’s hand grasp his knee. He wanted to say something, anything, to apologize for whatever it was he said or did that called Ronan away from his game and to his side (judging by the feel of his throat he had been doing and it had been screaming). But more than that he wanted to learn how to breathe again, with a hand on his knee, a hand that was safe, strong, that had been raised to defend him, and had never raised against him, not even when Adam’s own hands had threatened to kill him.

 

“Parrish, hey,” Ronan’s hand was on his face, the smooth of his thumb brushing underneath his eyes before he had really processed that he was crying.

 

Adam returned Ronan’s gaze, and, not for the first time remarked on how blue they were, how other wordly blue, and wondered how much of Ronan Lynch was a dream.  _ All of it _ , he thought.  _ He must be all dream.  _

 

“Nightmare,” he gave sheepishly.

 

“Your dad?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

Ronan dropped his hand from Adam’s face and turned. He was seething, jaw clenched, leg bouncing, as if he had absorbed all the anguish and fear from Adam’s body.

 

“I’m sorry, I’ll go if-”

 

“No you won’t,” Ronan snapped. “Sorry. I’m just… I hate that… he gets to be fine. He gets to be out there and fine and when you’re here you have to remember him and it isn’t fucking fair. If you let me, if you say the fucking word, Parrish, I’ll take care of him, I’ll-”

 

“I know,” Adam said, sitting up, feeling a being of sound body and mind again. He was surprised by how much he meant it. “But you can’t. I know it doesn’t make sense, but… he’s my dad… he’s… he’s my dad.”

 

Ronan leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, chin resting on his hands, as if he prayed. Adam slid closer to him on the couch and ran his hand across his neck, down his back, following the line of his tattoo. He felt a chill creep up his own spine, still not used to the miracle of this, this truth of what they were, of how he felt, the dream that was Ronan Lynch at all, much less shirtless and in basketball shorts and on the same couch and wanting so badly to make him okay that it hurt him. 

 

Up and down, knuckles then fingertips, knuckles then fingertips, he spanned the length of Ronan’s back, sometimes drifting across his shoulders. Ronan kept his religious vigil to…  _ to me? _ ...to something… or nothing… but Adam felt his muscles ease up a little bit. Adam had always been good at working with his hands. The default menu screen of the paused game had dimmed from neglect and the water glass was more sweat than drink when Ronan spoke, a whisper, “I want you to feel safe here.”

 

Adam saw Ronan’s eyes half glance toward him as he moved forward so that they were sitting hip to hip, saw tension return to his jaw as glitter in those eyes threatened to become tears. He linked their arms and rested his head on Ronan’s shoulder. Ronan dropped his hands and looked back at him, his beauty no less surreal when tilted. His nostrils flared a little as his breath deepened and Adam saw his bottom lip come dangerously close to a quiver.

 

“It isn’t because I’m here,” he said, which doubled as the truth and as what he hoped was a salve for whatever wound he had managed to create in this indestructible creature. 

 

“Nah?”

 

“Nah,” Adam mimicked, smiling a little bit. “I feel… this is the safest place I’ve ever been. Here.”

 

Ronan laid his back against the couch, gently pulling Adam with him, lacing the fingers of his right hand through the fingers of Adam’s left. 

 

“Good.”

 

“Good.”

 

Ronan picked up the controller with his feet and then his free hand, raising his eyebrows at Adam as he did, daring him to not be impressed with this modern feat of ingenuity and it gave them both a much needed laugh. Their hands untangled so Ronan could go on casting, fighting, making good things, an enchanted world, and tearing down anything or anyone bad with no forgiveness. 

 

And Adam realized that dream or not dream or half dream…

 

Ronan Lynch was a good man. A good, good man. 

 

He stopped watching the screen and started watching Ronan. Two trophies unlocked before Ronan asked, “What are you looking at nerd?”

 

“I don’t know,” Adam said, pretending to think very hard, which made Ronan roll his eyes and then commit to a rather lewd gesture.

 

“Charming.”

 

“I… am… tired?”

 

“Are you telling me or asking me?”

 

“I’m full of Dr. Pepper and lies, man, I don’t know.”

 

“Maybe we should go to bed.”

 

“Yeah. We. Um… you gonna be alright? Sleeping? Dreaming I mean?”

 

Adam didn’t really know. 

 

“It’s just something that happens.”

 

“Well…” Ronan said, standing and pulling cushions from underneath Adam, and then from a loveseat on the other side of the room, tossing them on the floor in some form of organized chaos. He turned back to Adam, arms outstretched, like he’d created something.

 

“Should I applaud,” he asked, somewhat overwhelmed by the sudden act of standing.

 

“We’re having a sleepover, Parrish.”

 

He pulled Adam close, kissed him, and then threw him backward onto the pillows. 

 

“It’s called a pallet,” he called as he left the den and entered the hallway. Adam could hear the hall closet open, “and it is a Lynch tradition for when you’re sick or the power’s out or you’re freaked out or dreaming weird shit.”

 

He came back into the room clutching pillows and sheets, towering over Adam who was still lying how he landed, spread eagle in the center of the cushions. 

 

“Please note that usually when a Lynch dreams weird shit you also need like...  fire to burn things in or maybe even a gun, you know, a nice fucking blunderbuss, I mean, you were there, you know, but I think… I think this still works out for your dreams. Your weird shit.”

 

He threw a sheet over Adam, it was cool as it hit his face, and it smelled timeless, the way things packed away with love and care did, and like pine, like amber, like rain… like this house and like Ronan. It was a scent so comforting, so pure, that it almost made up for the fact that it had ruined the view of a really nice set of well muscled thighs. 

 

Soon Ronan climbed under the sheet with him, nuzzling his head into a pillow as he offered one to Adam. He took it and turned on his side to face Ronan.

 

“Check this shit out,” Ronan said, turning onto his stomach, reaching out for the gaming controller, and clicking through configurations until the game was saved, gone, away, and the screen was now a barely moving scene of a starry night sky over snow capped mountains. “Tranquil shit, no?”

 

“Come here,” Adam beckoned. Ronan listened. There was a hand in his hair another wrapped around him, gripping a hip, quick as lightning. The grip stayed tight but the kiss on his forehead was sweet and soft.

 

“I’m here,” Ronan said when he pulled back. “I’m… I’m gonna be here, okay?”

 

“Okay,” Adam said.

 

He turned his back to Ronan, onto his left side, which was the way he always fell asleep, and felt Ronan stretch out his left arm under his pillow and lay his head back down on it, which was the way Ronan always fell asleep. But he had only ever watched this, not heard it happen at his back, not been here to feel the rise and fall of Ronan’s chest, or to have Ronan’s free arm wrap around him. Adam pulled the sheets up so they were properly tucked in. 

 

“I left my headphones upstairs,” he heard Ronan say.

“Do you need them?”

 

“Will it bother you if I hum?”

 

“I don’t think so. Try it.”

 

“Ahem,” Ronan said and then sarcastically made throat noises until Adam told him to stop.

 

Ronan hummed and something in it warmed Adam, “Are there words?”

 

“Hmm?”

 

“Lyrics? Or just a tune?”

 

“There are lyrics. My mom and dad used to sing it to us. Which is funny now that I know mom was a dream and most definitely not Irish.”

 

“Will you sing it?”

 

“Um… Sure. Yeah.”

 

“Only if you want to.”

 

Ronan laughed, “You’re so nice, Parrish.”

 

And he sang, his inhales and exhales tickling Adam’s neck and brushing his hair, and something in the song tugged and pulled at him.

 

_ When the road it is tiresome and hard to tread _

_ And the lights of their cities blind you _

_ Oh turn a stor to Erin's shore _

_ And the one that you leave behind you _

_ A stor mo chroi when the evening mist _

_ Over mountain and sea is falling _

_ Oh turn a stor and then you list _

_ And maybe you will hear me calling _

_ For the sound of a voice you will surely miss _

_ Somebody speedily returning _

_ A run a run won't you come back soon _

_ To the one that will always love you _

 

The song was over and the room was quiet, except for the electric hum of the gaming console and the television. Adam wished Ronan would sing him to sleep forever.

  
  


“Hey,” he called.

 

“That bad?”

 

“No, it was beautiful.”

 

“Stop, you’ll make me blush.”

 

“Lynch, don’t,” Adam tucked his head underneath the sheet and felt his neck and ears grow hot.

 

“Oh, this is a serious hey. Are you hiding? Are you good?”

 

“Yeah. Not hiding. I’m… I…”

Ronan’s hand rose from Adam’s waist and stroked the center of his chest. Ronan waited for whatever it was that Adam needed… even if it was more bad, more nightmares, more of a monster that Adam wouldn’t let him fight. 

  
  
  


And so it felt even more like the time to do it.

 

“Ronan,” he called, not whispering, as loud and clear as his pained throat would let him, “I love you. I’m in love with you.”

 

And then he was on his back and Ronan leaned over him, a hand tenderly gripping Adam’s throat, a tongue eagerly massaging his own. 

 

“About fucking time,” Ronan managed to say between kisses, and then, “I love you so goddamn much.”


End file.
